DACA Update as of February 26, 2018

If you’ve been reading the Kuck | Baxter Immigration Partners Blog this past month, then you’ve seen that we’ve been conscientiously following the legal and political roller coaster concerning the status of DACA. You can catch up on our blog posts with DACA status updates here, here, and here.

US passports and judges legal gavel

The most recent twist and turn for DACA occurred on Monday, February 26, 2018.

The White House had requested that the Supreme Court immediately decide whether the Trump Administration could terminate the DACA program. If you recall, on September 5, 2017, the Trump Administration rescinded the DACA program, but allowed a six-month grace period for anyone with current DACA status trying to renew. After that deadline date of March 5, 2018, any DACA recipient whose DACA status had expired would no longer receive the temporary protection from deportation that DACA provided.[1]

In an unusual procedural move known as “certiorari before judgment”, the Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to grant immediate review of the DACA issue, leapfrogging the appeals court decision making level. Certiorari before judgment has usually only been seen “in cases involving national crises like President Harry S. Truman’s seizure of the steel industry and President Richard M. Nixon’s refusal to turn over tape recordings to a special prosecutor.”[2]

On February 26, 2018, the Supreme Court declined the White House’s request to decide on the DACA issue. This move from the Supreme Court was to be expected as currently no appeals court has ruled on the issue (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has yet to rule on the Trump Administration’s appeal of the January 9, 2018 federal judge in California who issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on Trump’s September 5, 2017 rescission of the DACA program).

The Supreme Court’s denial of the Trump Administration’s request for review of a district-court order blocking the termination of the DACA program “simply allowed the case to run its normal course through the appeals court, which it asked to ‘proceed expeditiously,” and that “[t]he case still could come to the high court in the future.”[3] The Supreme Court’s order was very brief and contained neither any reasons nor dissenting opinions. However, the Supreme Court did say that it expects the appeals court to “proceed expeditiously to decide this case.”[4]

So, as it stands as of February 26, 2018, DACA is still in a precarious state of limbo—and the 700,000 young undocumented immigrants with DACA status who currently have temporary protection from deportation anxiously await a more final decision the issue.

For now, everyone with DACA should be submitting their renewals, regardless of their expiration date. This will ensure that when DACA ends, and it will eventually end, everyone has the longest possible term available. You can even renew your DACA if it expired at any time in the last twelve months.

The immigration attorneys and DACA attorneys at the immigration law firm of Kuck | Baxter are working around-the-clock to stay abreast of the constantly fluctuating and erratic changes to immigration law programs such as DACA that are currently on the table/chopping block.

Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to the confusing and ever-changing U.S. immigration laws and policies. Our immigration lawyers use their deep knowledge of the current status of immigration laws to best advise their client on their options with a degree of confidence that is as high as possible during this tumultuous time.